By Mani Dabiri | Published March 16, 2018 | Posted in Federal and State Criminal Defense, Government Subpoenas and Investigations, Post-Conviction Defense and Appeals, White-Collar and Regulatory Defense | Tagged Tags: billofrights, brady, dueprocess, obstructionofjustice, prosecutorialmisconduct |
The End of Absolute Immunity for Prosecutors
Another outstanding feature by The Marshall Project. It’s written by a senior federal trial judge in New York. For 23 years, he’s sentenced the likes of murderers, rapists, gangsters, and fraudsters—some to prison for the rest of their lives. But he says it’s time to put an end to absolute immunity for prosecutors. Absolute immunity is what Read More
Read MoreA Tale of Two Rules for California Prosecutors
In the first days of fall, the Golden State has set forth two new, important rules to punish prosecutors who unreasonably, recklessly, or intentionally withhold evidence from the accused. One is a criminal statute that goes into effect next year. The other is an ethics rule that goes into effect if and when the state’s supreme court Read More
Read MoreLies, Damned Lies, and Sex Crimes
If you thought the case from last week was bad, here’s another one that’s worse. This time, the supposed victim hasn’t stepped forward to admit she lied, so the man she accused of child molestation sits in prison, as he has for seventeen years, and the system seems powerless to stop it. What happened? The jury never saw medical records Read More
Read MoreA Postscript to Last Week’s Open Letter
Following up on last week’s post, readers should understand the timeline of events that brought the misconduct to light. Here are the highlights. In January 2013, a defendant in a murder case filed a motion to get some important information from the prosecution. The trial court found good cause for the motion and granted it, but the district attorney’s office Read More
Read MoreAn Open Letter to the District Attorney of Orange County
Mr. Rackauckas: Just what is going on in your office, sir? I’m not talking about the fight that broke out in a county courthouse three weeks ago between one of your investigators and a defense attorney. Never mind that if a defense attorney did this to a cop, he’d be arrested so fast his head would spin. (Full Read More
Read MoreSomething Wicked This Way Comes
I recently watched the documentary, Making A Murderer, and if you haven’t yet, you should. No, it’s not an indictment of all law enforcement. It’s an object lesson in why we should be deeply skeptical of power and the people who lord it over our lives. And how easy it can be for them to get you, too, especially once they’ve Read More
Read MoreA House of Cards
That’s how the U.S. Supreme Court described the evidence in a murder case that it reversed last week because the prosecution had wrongly concealed other important evidence from the defense and jury. Factor in that other evidence, the Court held, and the house begins to crumble. How so? There was no physical evidence tying the defendant to the murder, only the Read More
Read MoreNew California Criminal Laws in 2016
Happy New Year! And with it, here are five important criminal laws that went into effect. Courts must report prosecutors for bad-faith Brady violations. This is Assembly Bill 1328. It amends the Penal Code to provide that a court must report a prosecutor to the State Bar who it finds, by clear and convincing evidence, has deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence in Read More
Read MoreCalifornia Supreme Court Revisits the Law of Access to Police Personnel Files
Police officers are human beings who are capable of making mistakes or behaving badly, just like anyone else, and if they testify in a criminal case, their credibility is always at issue, just like any other witness. So what do you do if you believe that an officer previously lied, behaved violently, used excessive force, or otherwise acted in ways that Read More
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